


Christmas Number Twenty-Seven

by betheflame



Series: Shorts & Drabbles 2019 [18]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Grandparents & Grandchildren, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Pepper Potts, Parent Steve Rogers, Parent Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21780187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: They've been having the same fight foryears- cranberry sauce from a can or homemade?
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Shorts & Drabbles 2019 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1432378
Comments: 33
Kudos: 108
Collections: MCU Christmas Exchange





	Christmas Number Twenty-Seven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tiny_Dragongirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiny_Dragongirl/gifts).



> Thanks to Ruquas for organizing such a fun event - my prompt was Steve/Tony and holiday fluff - I hope I delivered!

“Steven, where is the cranberry sauce?”

Steve looked over his shoulder to see his husband poking around in the fridge and knew what was coming.

“It’s on the door, Anthony.”

“Well, how can it be on the door when it should be in a bowl, Steven?”

“Because it’s still in the can,” Steve replied, keeping his tone even.

Twenty-seven Christmases they’d been together and they’d had this fight twenty-seven times.

“No,” MJ called from her seat at the kitchen island, where she was chopping parsley for the stuffing. “I do not have the energy for this right now. When we set the table in two hours, there will be two kinds of cranberry sauce, four kinds of potatoes, two kinds of stuffing, and three kinds of carrots because the literal only thing you muppets have agreed on in nearly thirty years was to adopt Peter so can. We. Not.”

Her fathers-in-law had the grace to look sheepish as her husband opened the front door and shook the snow off of his person.

“It’s starting to slow down, the snow is,” Peter remarked as he kissed his very pregnant wife ‘hello’ and went to wash his hands. “I’m assuming Dad hasn’t peeled any potatoes?”

“Correct,” Steve replied from his place at the counter where he was putting the finishing touches on the lattice work for his apple pie.

“They’re fighting about the can again,” MJ clarified. “Save yourself.”

“I’m literally right here,” Tony replied.

“Oh, are you?” MJ blinked in faux-amazement. “Because if you are and there are still three pounds of potatoes to peel, then something is wrong.”

“The sass levels will go back down once the baby’s here, right?” Tony replied.

“Well, after I push her out of me, then I spend the next year of her life as her food, so no, Dad, I don’t think the sass levels will go back down.”

“Dad,” Peter whispered. “Not a funny joke.”

Tony blinked, as though reorienting himself to the tableau before him and saw the frustration on his son’s face and tears prickling MJ’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, that was rude, I’m sorry, I’m just... “ MJ took a shaky breath. “I can’t seem to control things and I’m a massive bitch and useless and I’m just…”

“Oh, no, sweetheart, it’s my fault,” Tony melted from sarcasm monster right into doting father and rushed to MJ’s side. “I thought we were doing a bit, I didn’t stop to think, and I’m an ass.”

“Come on, Sprocket,” Peter muttered to his wife of four years as he helped her get up off the stool. “Let’s go talk to a bath about those feelings.”

“Hey, Genius Bar,” Steve muttered to his husband, pulling him close. “Be cool. None of this is easy.”

Tony nodded and kissed the side of Steve’s jaw, before silently moving to the pile of potatoes which needed tending to.

Steve and Tony had been more-than-friends-but-less-than-dating for about six months their first Christmas. They’d met during a class project their sophomore year of college and had fallen into a relationship entirely based on bickering and their friend groups slowly merged. Tony brought a terrifyingly gorgeous and competent woman named Pepper, along with her boyfriend Bucky, and a kind genius named Bruce. Steve had brought his roommate Sam, his ex-girlfriend Natasha, and her roommate Carol. By the time senior year hit and futures needed to be planned - their group decided to plan theirs around each other.

The Christmas of their senior year was a seminal switch for them. The pair were screwing around, and making out against every flat surface, and bickering constantly when Pepper and Bucky invited them back to Pepper’s family in Virginia for Christmas.

_“I really, really hate brussel sprouts,” Steve had muttered to Tony under his breath as Pepper’s grandmother had insisted for the fourth time that he help himself to sprouts._

_Tony responded by putting a spoonful on Steve’s plate and sneakily eating them so that Grandma would be happy and Steve would be safe._

_“Next year, we’ll do Christmas, and we’ll do it without sprouts,” Tony promised._

_“And with mashed sweet potatoes,” Steve offered._

_“And the cranberry sauce will come from a can.”_

_“Absolutely not,” Steve swore. “It will be handmade with fresh cranberries and oranges.”_

_“Abomination,” Tony gasped. “How could you possible defile tradition that way?”_

_“Considering the whole feast is made of constructed traditions-”_

_“Okay, sociology major, take a seat,” Bucky smirked from across the table and pink dusted Steve’s cheeks when he realized their voices had raised. After the attention was turned away from them onto Pepper and Bucky’s upcoming wedding plans, Tony slipped his fingers into Steve’s._

_“Two kinds of cranberry sauce and whatever potatoes you want. I promise.”_

A few nights later, Tony told Steve he was pretty sure he was in love with him and Steve said the same and they shifted into permanence. In terms of the Christmas food, it had been as they promised every year since. A giant table heaving with too much food, surrounded by everyone they loved and anyone who needed a place to be that day, and the day was always ended with rounds of Christmas carols sung round Tony playing the piano.

Peter had taken over accompaniment duties when he was fifteen, and the faces changed around the table, but otherwise, things were the same as they’d been. There’d been some serious negotiations when Peter and MJ got married and MJ introduced ham as part of the feast, but Tony had just shifted from a giant turkey to a smaller chicken and a ham and Steve was honestly proud of him for not putting up too much of a fuss.

“Dad, are you freaking out?”

Peter’s voice broke the comfortable silence that Tony and Steve had been working in and Tony turned to see his son - his boy - slump onto a chair at the kitchen island.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“You apologized,” Peter interrupted. “She’ll want to do it, too, so it’s best if it’s just water under the bridge for now. Aunt Pepper told her to expect this.”

“Has Uncle Jamie been helpful to you, too, kiddo?” Steve asked.

Peter nodded. “You guys are so helpful at being dads, but…”

“But you came to us pretty far out of the womb, not from a lady we’re married to,” Steve smiled gently. “We get it.”

“Your Aunt Pepper offered, though,” Tony said, absentmindedly.

“Really?”

Tony nodded and pulled a can of sparkling water out of the fridge and popped the top. “I’m sure we told you that. Anyway, yeah, we were getting tired of waiting for you, and Abby and Erin were about 2, so she thought it would work.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well,” Tony smiled, “then she met Mary and we knew you were meant to be part of our family.”

Peter rubbed his thumb over the tattoo on his forearm that he’d gotten many years back in honor of his birth mother, the way he always did when she was mentioned. “I’m worried I don’t remember her enough to tell Mikayla about her.”

Steve rounded the island and pulled Peter into a hug. “Your daughter has so many ways to learn about Mary. She has the letters Mary wrote you and your baby book, she has Aunt May, and she has you. She’ll know who your mother was because she’ll know you.”

“You were three when she died, kiddo,” Tony pointed out from Peter’s other side, where he had positioned himself. “You’ll learn quick that memory is pretty shady until four or five, so it’s okay that you don’t remember your mom that much.”

Peter nodded. “If I’m this overwhelmed now, how am I gonna feel when she’s born?”

“Overwhelmed, petrified, exhausted,” Steve ticked off his fingers, “and unmitigatingly happy.”

Peter smiled and leaned into each of his fathers. “Thanks, Pops, Dad.”

“We love you, kiddo,” Tony kissed the top of his forehead. “Now go see if MJ wants snacks brought to her or if she needs a nap before the Barnes’ get here - all forty-eight of them.”

“There are ten,” Steve rolled his eyes. “Pep and Buck, Amy and Shawn and Patrick, and then Erin and Juanita and Frankie, and Evan and Sandra.”

Peter extracted himself from the hug and asked if they knew when the Wilsons and Uncle Bruce were coming and checked his phone to let his dads know that his friend Ned and Ned’s wife Betty, plus their other friends Josh, Maggie, Priya, and Sasha would all be there in two hours.

“You know,” Tony said when it was just him and Steve again, “he makes fun of us every year for having too much food.”

“But then he invites his entire friend circle and I never get any sweet potatoes before they run out,” Steve finished, with a laugh in his voice. “And the answer to the unspoken question is that he’s your son.”

“You’re the bottomless pit,” Tony laughed.

“But you’re the one who adopts all the strays,” Steve smiled lovingly.

“There’s a Tupperware of sweet potatoes in the fridge in the garage. It’s marked as brussel sprouts,” Tony kissed his husband and wiggled his eyebrows.

Steve laughed out loud and grabbed Tony for a deeper kiss.

Christmas number twenty-seven was going to be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works. If you're on Discord, I'm definitely there, too, and probably hanging in the [Stony](https://discord.gg/z5WSqbS) or [Stuckony](https://discord.gg/jtXcc3n) servers


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